Drowning This Because A) Really Don't Want To Make A Long Post Longer And, B) This Isn't The Type Of

Drowning this because a) really don't want to make a long post longer and, b) this isn't the type of person who'd respond well to constructive criticism of their worldview from someone familiar with the topic.

Since I'm not looking for an argument, I thought I'd use it as a learning exercise for everyone else. Also under a cut because it got very long and I started quoting papyri because I was annoyed.

For starters, it always matters when and why a tomb was robbed. I don’t care if you believe that tombs should never ever be touched, someone is always trying to find them and loot them. The black market is huge for antiquities and we’re fighting an uphill battle against that. Ergo, it matters immensely to know when and why a tomb was robbed.

I’ll use Egypt as the example because that’s what I know best. Egypt as a whole does a great job at keeping the looters at bay. They work very hard, and they’ve got some great task forces set up to monitor sites. But you can’t monitor all the sites all the time. It’s too big of a task and there aren’t enough resources. So looters will get in, they will take things from a site not previously excavated (or even ones that have been and the items are in storage locally), and they will smuggle them out of the country to sell on the black market. So when we, as archaeologists (I use the royal ‘we’ I’m not an archaeologist), come to a site to excavate and find it looted, it’s hugely important for us to know whether that looting took place recently or whether this was robbed in antiquity. It tells us whether we need extra protection at the site, or whether there’s some interesting history to it instead.

Both the when and the why give us a story. If it’s a modern looting we know it’s greed/desperation. Those are usually the two motivating factors. If it’s ancient, then it’s usually the same two factors, but it then opens up the question of ‘just what was happening that made people resort to tomb robbery out of desperation?’ It adds to the overall picture of the history of an area.

The use of the term ‘sacred’ crops up a lot in these arguments, and it’s always from people who learned about Ancient Egypt aged 8 and have never looked at anything since. You learned ‘the Ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death and it was the most important thing to them’ and never looked any further. The Egyptians being obsessed with death is a misnomer bolstered by the fact that there’s a bias in the excavated material towards tombs and grave goods. They thought about death about as much as you or I, it’s just the main surviving artefacts we have from them just happen to be tombs.

So, were the tombs sacred to the Ancient Egyptians? The answer is yes and no.

People always think that ‘sacred’ means ‘untouchable’ in these contexts and that’s not quite true. The Egyptians visited their dead as often as we visit the graves of our relatives. Their entire funerary system required entering the tombs of their relatives frequently to leave offerings for the Ka’s of the deceased so that their relative could continue to live on in the afterlife. This is what False Doors were for in the Old Kingdom, or Ancestor busts were for in the New Kingdom. Tombs of the common folk weren’t completely sealed, but frequently visited. In the catacombs of the Late Period and beyond we find children’s drawings both on the walls and on the linen used to wrap the mummies. For the person above, this would be desecration of the dead, but to me it shows that the Egyptians were with their dead frequently and also brought their children. Tombs were places the whole family visited and they were there long enough that a child could scribble on bandages and the fact that this happened often enough shows us that the Egyptians weren’t bothered by these drawings either.

The only tombs that weren’t ever made to be visited frequently were Royal ones. Kings in Ancient Egypt had their own mortuary cults where the priests in the mortuary temple dedicated to that king would perform the rites and provide the offerings to keep the Ka of the king alive in perpetuity. This meant that a tomb would be completely sealed and no one was to go in there. The State considered them sacred. The local Egyptian populace at the time? Not so much.

I know full well that this person will have likely heard the old adage that ‘the pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings because it was sacred and secret’ and they’ve taken that as absolute unchangeable fact. But it’s not quite true. There’s Deir el Medina, the village of artisans that a lot of documentaries will tell you was a secret place (it wasn’t) and that the Valley of the Kings was also secret (it wasn’t). The artisans from that village could freely leave and their family from elsewhere could come and visit, it was just a village closer to the valley so they didn’t travel as far. The Valley of the Kings being secret? Not really. When I did my doctorate on the investigation into the robberies in the VotK by the Egyptians at the time, it was determined that 99% of the robbers came from Thebes not Deir el Medina. For years everyone just repeated ‘well the thieves must have been from DeM because no one else knew where the tombs were’ and if you read the papyri, you’ll find that simply isn’t true. People in Thebes knew where these tombs were and they went to rob them. They’re not shy about that fact either. They robbed them because the economy was in shambles and they needed higher value items to barter with for food.

Tomb robbery was so common in Ancient Egypt that people pretty much expected their tombs to be looted at some point. You find them with threat formulae on the walls for those who would ‘harm the body’ of the deceased (that’s an important distinction we’ll come back to later) or traps (like the one in the pyramid at Lahun), but they definitely fully expected to be robbed. That tells us something, and that something is that despite all that…the Ancient Egyptians didn’t really consider tombs sacred places. If looting is that common and not particularly frowned upon by those around them, then the idea of ‘sacred’ is more likely to be misapplied or far less important than what we’ve been led to believe. This does segue into an argument about written vs actual beliefs within a society insomuch as how far can we say any ancient society fully believed in the entirety of their state religion at any given time. Like with modern day religious beliefs there are people who 100% subscribe to them, some that pay lip service, and a lot that don’t believe in anything at all but it’s the culture so they just go along with it. To assume that all Ancient Egyptians 100% believed in their religion and thus considered tombs sacred and untouchable is just not viable.

I mean, let’s take this quote from Papyrus Leopold II Amherst which is a trial document of a tomb robber describing what he did to the bodies of a 17th Dynasty king and queen:

“….Regenal year 13 of Pharaoh l.p.h our lord l.p.h come into being 4 years ago I joined with the Craftsman Seteknakht son of Penankht of the temple of Usermaatre Meryamun l.p.h in the house of Amun under the authority of the Second priest of Amun Re King of the Gods, Sem Priest Nesamun of the temple of Usermaatre Meryamun l.p.h of the house of Amun <with> the Stonemason Hapyaa of the house of Amun, Field Worker Amenemhab of the house of Amunipet under the authority of the High Priest of Amun Re King of the Gods Craftsman Irenamun belonging to the Overseer of the Hunters of Amun with the Water Pourer Khaemwese of the Portable Shrine of King Menkhepere l.p.h in Thebes <with> the Boatman of the Governor of Thebes Ahay son of Tjaroy. Total: 8 men. We went to rob the tombs like that which was our regular habit. We found the Pyramid of King Sekhemre Shedtawy l.p.h son of Rasobekemsaf l.p.h not like all the Pyramids and tombs of the nobles which we went to rob as was the regular habit. We took our copper spike and we forced a way into the Pyramid of this king through its innermost chambers. We found its chambers and we took lighted lamps in our hands and we descended. We broke through the rubble which we found on the mouth of its descent. We found the god lying at the back of his burial place. We found the burial place of Kings wife Nebkhaas l.p.h his king’s wife in the place of his lying, it being protected and guarded by plaster and covered in rubble.

We broke through it as well. We found her resting in like manner. We opened their sarcophagi, their inner coffins in which they were in. We found the noble mummy of this King, it equipped in falchion great of amulets, jewels of gold on his neck his head piece of gold on him. The noble mummy of this king was covered in gold in its entirety and his coffins adorned in gold and silver inside and out to filled with precious stones. We collected all the gold which we found on the noble mummy of this great god together with his amulets and precious stones on his neck on these coffins which were resting there. We found the kings wife in the like. We collected all that we found on her likewise.

We placed fire on the coffins and we took the furniture which we found with them consisting of articles of gold and silver and bronze. We shared them. We made the gold which we found on these 2 gods from their mummies, amulets, jewels, and coffins into 8 shares and 20 deben of gold fell to each of the 8 men, we made 160 deben of gold, the fragments(?) of the furniture was not included. Then we ferried over to Thebes and after some days the inspectors of Thebes heard sayings that we had been stealing in the West, and they seized me and they imprisoned me in the place of the Governor of Thebes, and I took the 20 deben of gold which had fallen to me as a share.

I gave them to the Scribe of the District Khaemipet of the landing place of Thebes. He released me, and I became one (rejoined) with my companions and they allocated me my share again. I have continued the conducting of robbery in the tombs of the nobles, and people of the land who rest in the west of Thebes, together with the other thieves who were with me. A large number of people of the land rob them in the like, and are partners (of ours).”

TL;DR: we broke in there, smashed everything up, set the bodies on fire, took the jewels, and nope this wasn’t the first time we’d done this and nope we’re not the only ones. There are loads of us.

Very sacred. Much intact. Wow fire.

So ‘what gives anyone the right, regardless of intent or legality’?

The law, and the desire to preserve these people lest the march of time erase them from history.

This argument never comes up when it’s, say, a Victorian cemetery being moved for a tube line construction in London. It’s always in relation to Egypt or other non-Western nation and their dead. The paternalism is so very strong when it comes to this. Who are you to tell the Egyptians that they can’t dig for their ancestors because you don’t think it’s respectful? Who are you to accuse them of being anything but respectful in the quest for the understanding of their history? You don’t have that right. It’s not up to you at all. It’s up to them, and if the Egyptians want to dig for their history, then they can, just the same as anyone else. This moralistic crusade of ‘I think it’s wrong, and even though it objectively hurts no one, because I think it’s wrong you must stop or you’re Bad’ bleeds into every aspect and wish people would cut it out.

This brings me neatly to the rather funny statement of ‘dig through cities and castles, and midden(sic) pits all you want…there needs to be a greater distinction between how archaeology treats sacred sites versus civil sites…’ because if this person knew the first thing about archaeology, then they’d know that often there’s no distinction between the two. Define a civil or sacred space in any given civilisation and you’ll find they often occupy the same space. You can’t ‘treat them differently’ because until you’ve excavated it you’ve no idea what you’re dealing with. People had altars to gods in their homes – that’s sacred and civil. Temples could be both meeting places and places of religious celebration. At Deir el Medina, the village, their burials, their little temple, and a giant rubbish pit are all next to each other. The space isn’t one or the other. Sometimes you find stuff where it’s not supposed to be too!

Archaeologists do not deliberately seek out the dead unless the site they’re excavating is already known to be a burial ground. That’s not what we do. More often than not, it can be a complete surprise to us to suddenly find a burial site in what was supposed to be a housing complex. This happens a lot when a site was occupied for a long time and I tend to find the ones with the ‘burial and living sites are separate’ view are USian more often than not. I’m European so I’m very used to archaeologists visiting a site where some company wants to build something, performing the legally required archaeological survey, and finding a Victorian church on top of a Medieval abbey that’s on top of a Roman burial ground. You’ll end up with bodies from all three periods and you’ve got to move them.

Why you ask?

Well I don’t know about you, nor the drowned post OP, but I tend to find it’d be more disrespectful to the dead there to allow a company to pile drive concrete through their resting place than it is to allow archaeologists to carefully dig them up and move them somewhere else where they can at least still rest in peace. This brings me back to the point I made about the Egyptians and their burial customs. It’s not the tomb that’s important, it’s the body staying intact and the name being remembered. It’d be more disrespectful to harm the body by letting a company build over it, than it is to move that body and preserve it. Sometimes you’ve got to move the contents of a dig site (tomb or not) because its in danger of being destroyed by the climate, robbers, or even modern construction.

London, Rome, Paris etc you cannot dig a metre down for anything without tripping over something archaeological, and a lot of times that’s going to be those ‘sacred’ sites. It can’t be helped. Time had marched forward, and those cities have expanded to cover what used to be cemeteries and sites that were once far outside city limits. Now they are the city. You can’t just go ‘welp, that’s sacred to people living 3000 years ago guess we can’t build here lads’ and move on. There’s respecting the dead and then there’s just taking that to ridiculous extremes. You’d literally not be able to build anywhere in Europe with that attitude. A lot of the time they find ways to leave them in situ if they can rather than move them, but sometimes there's really no choice but to move them.

Like I hate to tell you this but they’re dead. The person they were is long gone. Anyone who knew them who could carry out their wishes is also long gone. We can respectfully and carefully move them, but they’re still dead and therefore don’t have a say in what happens here. One day you’ll be dead too, and since many burial plots are rented for a certain number of years (and you know this when you get the plot so have fun discovering that later on), you will die knowing that in 100 years they can legally move you somewhere else and you won’t know where because you’re dead.

I’m not making that up. Many cemeteries in the UK and Europe have time limits for how long you legally own that grave for. Here’s the relevant section from my local parish council’s website about the cemetery a lot of my family are buried in.

If you have living family, they can choose to renew that lease. But if it’s been 100 years and there’s limited space or the site that was a cemetery is needed for another purpose, they can choose to have you moved, and you as the deceased get no choice in where that is. It doesn’t mean it will be disrespectful and they’ll simply throw you in the trash, it just means that your burial site is going to get disrupted because the future cannot wait on the dead. That’s just life.

So the idea that excavating and protecting archaeological sites from looters and destruction via construction company is worse than leaving them in situ and letting them be destroyed is laughable. Archaeologists deeply care for those remains they find. We treat them with respect when we move them and we do it with as much care as we are able to. Personally, I know archaeologists who talk to the remains as they have to move them, explaining what’s happening to the person before respectfully placing them in the box where they can be safe. I, myself, often speak to mummies by name (if we know them). At one museum I worked at the staff greeted the mummy on display by her name every day, and for the Egyptians someone remembering their name and speaking it after their death is the height of respect. That allows the person’s Ka to live on in Aaru.

They’re dead but they’re still people, and to say that archaeologists don’t respect them is just plain wrong. They do, very much, but we also recognise that sometimes you’ve got to do some things that others might find distasteful in order to maintain that respect. Honestly, I’d rather a person was removed from their tomb with their burial goods and placed in a safe environment, than let the climate or construction destroy them. But that’s just me.